1. Technical Field
Exemplary aspects of the present invention generally relate to an image forming apparatus, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus including a carriage that mounts a recording head thereon.
2. Related Art
One type of image forming apparatus, such as a printer, copier, plotter, facsimile machine, or multifunction device having two or more of these capabilities is an inkjet recording device employing a liquid ejection recording method. The inkjet recording device includes a recording head constructed of a liquid ejection head that ejects droplets of a recording liquid such as ink onto a sheet of a recording medium to form an image on the sheet.
There is known an inkjet recording device that further includes a carriage that mounts the recording head thereon, a carriage rail that supports the carriage slidably in a main scanning direction and rotatably in a rotation direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction, a guide rail extending in the main scanning direction to restrict a position of the carriage relative to the carriage rail in the rotation direction, an adjustment member to which the guide rail is fastened, a support member to which the adjustment member is fastened, a first adjustment mechanism that moves the guide rail relative to the adjustment member in a direction intersecting with the main scanning direction to adjust the position of the guide rail, and a second adjustment mechanism that moves the adjustment member relative to the support member in the direction intersecting with the main scanning direction to adjust relative positions of the adjustment member and the guide rail. The first adjustment mechanism has multiple adjustment portions that move the guide rail relative to the adjustment member, and the second adjustment mechanism has multiple adjustment portions that move the adjustment member relative to the support member.
A guide member that guides the carriage is often held by a stay member extending in the main scanning direction or by a configuration in which both ends of the guide member are attached to lateral plates of the image forming apparatus. In the former case, in which the guide member is held by the stay member, a twist in the stay member or an inclination of the stay member relative to a surface of the recording medium, on which an image is formed by the recording head, causes a gap between the surface of the recording medium and a nozzle face of the recording head mounted on the carriage guided by the guide member to fluctuate in size, thereby degrading image quality.
It is conceivable that the above-described problem can be solved by correcting the position of the guide rail and the twist or inclination of the stay member. However, in the related-art configuration of the image forming apparatus described above, although the position of the guide rail in the direction perpendicular to the main scanning direction is correctible, the twist in the stay member in the main scanning direction and the angle of the stay member relative to the surface of the recording medium are not correctible.